Several stores in Carpinteria’s Casitas Plaza Shopping Center were evacuated Monday afternoon after a package with white powder inside exploded at the center’s UPS store.

Emergency personnel first responded to 1072 Casitas Pass Road at around 2:30 p.m. and reported no injuries in the incident, according to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Raquel Zick.

Zick said investigators determined the exploded object was a fire extinguisher.

Carpinteria UPS store employee Moises Asim told Noozhawk the package — approximately 30 inches in size — exploded when one employee in the back room picked it up. Asim was on the phone in the main area of the store when the box exploded.

He said it smelled “chemically,” and he told the employee holding the box to run.

“I just saw a lot of white powder. I don’t know exactly what it is,” he said.

There were four employees and roughly six customers in the store at the time, he said.

“We all got out in less than 30 seconds,” he said.

Sheriff’s Office and Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Protection District personnel responded to the scene and installed police tape in the shopping center parking lot.

The Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad responded to the scene to investigate the incident and asked people to avoid the area Monday afternoon.

Evacuations were issued for all stores located between the center’s Goodwill Donation Center and Taco Grande.

That included Taco Grande; Bank of America; Fantastic Sam’s; Sandcastle Time; UPS Store; Elite Nails; Carp Sports; Jersey Mike’s; Little Caesars Pizza; CVS; and Goodwill.

The evacuations were lifted around 5 p.m. and the UPS employees were allowed to return to the store.